Abused migrant workers get treatment
M. Taufiqurrahman and Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Tangerang
A number of migrant workers who came home from Middle Eastern countries on Friday are now being treated at a hospital for serious injuries and depression allegedly the result of harsh treatment by their former employers, an activist said on Sunday.
An activist with the Consortium for Migrant Workers Protection (Kopbumi), who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, said six workers were immediately brought to the police Sukanto Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, upon arrival at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on Saturday afternoon.
"But one who was suffering from depression was forcibly removed from the hospital by employees of recruitment agency PT Asami Ananda Mandiri," the activist told The Jakarta Post.
Four others sustained severe bruises and concussion, while the last one is under intensive care for symptoms of manic depression, the activist said.
Earlier, the six admitted to reporters at the airport that they had to return home after working for several months in Saudi Arabia and Jordan because they could no longer cope with the constant violence inflicted by their employers, including sexual harassment.
Lili Kholifah, who had worked for nine months in Jeddah, said she fled her male employer Mohammad Aloyseroi without bothering to get her salary "because my employer had repeatedly attempted to rape me".
Panji Krisnowo, a manpower agency staffer assigned at the airport's Terminal III specially assigned for migrant workers, said that on Friday alone 236 Indonesian workers arrived home from various countries. Most of them returned as their contracts had ended, he said.
There is no explanation as to why the migrant workers were taken to the police hospital under tight security after leaving the airport.
Noted sociologist Imam B. Prasodjo, who is also chairman of Yayasan Nurani Dunia (World Conscience Foundation), said that the plight of migrant workers was due to the government's negligence.
He said the government had no comprehensive policies regarding its overseas workers.
"In the very early stage, there are no policies regulating the recruitment of the workers therefore they will easily fall prey to greedy agencies," he said, adding that most of the workers were not given proper training prior to their departure.
In the receiving countries, lack of training and the language barrier added to the workers' woes.
"Employers expect that the workers they hired are properly skilled, when in fact they are women from remote villages in Indonesia without even basic knowledge of how to turn on electronics appliances. To make matters worse, their inability to speak the local language is the main source of misunderstanding that easily ends up in physical abuse at the hands of their employer," he told the Post.